Hi all,

Got my new hdd, ensured that the first (windows) disk was secure, and installed Sarge 3.1r0a on the new disk (hdb). Upon rebooting to confiugure the newly installed system, I started getting endless errors as in the subject line:I rebooted with ctl+alt+del, and the messages still came. They kicked the blue configuration screens off, making further configuration impossible. So, I rebooted with Knoppix (take that, windows) to have a look what Google could tell me.

Google tells me the following:
* Advanced Programmable Interrupt Controller (APIC, not ACPI, heh)
* It could be a hardware problem "somewhere," and in any case it's due to interrupts that APIC can't handle.
* The problem appears to be most common to SiS chipsets, which my motherboard uses (an MSI board with SiS 648 chipset).
* It can reportedly be solved on some boards by a BIOS upgrade.

Most interestingly:http://www.uwsg.iu.edu/hypermail/lin...04.0/1098.html

Thus, the problem is only "Receive Illegal Vector."

The suggestion came not infrequently to simply to boot without APIC (with a bootcheat in GRUB, for example, which I can't really get to unless I do it with Knoppix.) I don't like this solution, it's inelegant. Besides, I just had Sarge stable installed -- like 3 times in the last month, the disks were dying, or so it seems; perhaps my mobo is getting screwy and it just seemed like disk errors -- and the error never happened. The only thing that's changed in the setup is a new hard-drive. It's the same chipset and same installation media.

I figure it's entirely possible that my mainboard has recently started to hit the wall. I've never flashed a BIOS, and would hate to start on the machine I currently rely on. (Windows is working, and so it's unacceptable to ruin the machine just for "that Linux stuff.") Besides, if it didn't happen in the previous installations, chances are the BIOS upgrade is not what is needed.

Even if turning APIC is inelegant, it just might be preferable to risking my mainboard's BIOS over. (Plus, just thinking of writing down and resetting all those values, ick.)

What possibilities might I be overlooking? What would you do in my position?

Ignore the problem and it'll go away?

I should mention that this time several of the partitions are using the ReiserFS file system. In previous installations, all partitions except swap were using ext3. Maybe that could make a difference. At least it gives me something to try if I don't make any progress.

For the benefit of any future forum searchers...

It turned out to be my ATA/IDE cable. It has suffered some damage at one of the connectors -- the one the Linux drive was attached to. On a hunch I stole the CD-ROMs' IDE cable, and everything is smooth now. As soon as I can pick up another cable, of course, I'll have CD again. (I went to the store today to pick one up and they wanted 40 SFR for it, when I can order it for 11. )

Anyway, no flashing BIOS, no disabling APIC, and my two older hdds are probably fine, too.

It appears not to be the problem in your case, but I had very similar errors, and an unstable system, when running a SMP kernel on a single-processor system. (Also for the benifit of future searchers )